The use of playyards of various designs and configuratios for receiving and supporting children is well known. Further, playyards with foldable capabilities are also well known. Such foldable playyards typically have hinges for converting the playyard between an erect deployed orientation and a collapsed orientation for transportation and storage.
The essential element to allow playyards to be retained in one orientation or another are hinges. Such hinges must be made safe for the child and convenient for the user. All known hinges suffer from one defect or the other.
The prior art discloses a large number of playyards with hinge capabilities. By way of example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,437 to Dillner discloses a playyard with complex and numerous component elements, and thus the assembling is complicated and the manufacturing cost is high.